LAPD Won’t Do Immigration Enforcement — But Will Shoot You With Rubber Bullets for Protesting ICE
As federal agents abducted at least 118 immigrants throughout Los Angeles County over the weekend, local leaders swatted away suggestions of collaboration on immigration enforcement — and sought to keep the blame squarely on federal authorities.
“LA was peaceful before Friday,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who joined her fellow California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom in blaming the Trump administration for escalating tensions by deploying federal troops. As of Tuesday, Trump has deployed 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 Marines to the city so far.
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Trump’s militarized response was certainly escalatory, several protesters told The Intercept. But while National Guard troops mostly stood around outside federal buildings, it was the Los Angeles Police Department whose members brutalized protesters with batons, tear gas, and so-called “less-lethal” munitions, drawing blood and bruising people who turned out to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
“Hearing the governor and Karen Bass talking about LAPD coming in to ‘protect the peace’ — this is so absurd,” said Robert Meraz, a 51-year-old public defender from Van Nuys. He joined an estimated 10,000-person march on Sunday, when an LAPD officer fired a bean-bag munition into his left arm.
An injury on Robert Meraz’s arm after he was struck by a bean-bag munition. Photo: Courtesy of Robert MerazMeraz was at the front of the group marching from LA City Hall to the federal detention facility several blocks away. There, federal agents were holding detainees swept up on Friday, when ICE arrested 14 workers at the Ambiance Apparel warehouse near the garment district and at least 40 more at car washes, street vendors, and waiting for work assignments in a Home Depot parking lot. Rights groups said the detainments, captured on viral videos, have been based on race and appearance of individuals.
Meraz works in Alameda County, but he was in the area visiting family when he joined the march. The child of immigrants from Mexico, Meraz told The Intercept that his own relatives sought work in front of Home Depot when he was growing up.
“And so then I’m hearing that ICE is just going around swooping up fools at Home Depot,” he said. “That was just too much.”
At the federal detention center, most of the recent detainees had yet to speak with an attorney, family members and attorneys told The Intercept. Federal officials illegally denied entry to members of Congress, including California Democratic Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Maxine Waters. Attorneys seeking access to their clients told The Intercept that some women being detained had to sleep outside, in tents without blankets, due to overcrowding.
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